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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24085231">The Cold Clear Light Of Day Down Here</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se'>Go0se</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(I hate that the bug horror existed but at the same time I'm glad that tag does), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), Character Study, Filling my legal requrement of at least one (1) fic inspred by The Mountain Goats per fandom of mine, Gen, Monsters, Spoilers for The Magnus Archives Season 4, and/or lack thereof</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:48:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>496</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24085231</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short considerations on the known avatars of the Fears.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Cold Clear Light Of Day Down Here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title from 'Letters From Belgium', the first song on 'We Shall All Be Healed' by The Mountain Goats.<br/>"<em>In the cold clear light of dear down here, everyone's a monster</em><br/><em>That's cool with all of us; we've been past the point of help since early April".</em></p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>On "Micheal" and "Helen", the Distortion.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter uses rapid switching between "he", "she", and "it" pronouns, referring to Micheal, Helen, and the Spiral as a separate entity from either of them, respectively.<br/>The chapter title is from "The House That Dripped Blood" (by The Mountain Goats).<br/>-</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Listen:</p><p>Micheal isn’t Helen isn’t the Spiral isn’t a door. The Spiral uses doors. It uses Helen and Micheal. Their faces are not as It is. It-Isn’t-What-It-Is. The Liar, a thief, a bear trap, a maze.</p><p>Micheal Shelley was a good person; he lived and was pointless except to and for those who loved him and he should have died. He cared for children and old women and the sick and the frightened, and the last person he trusted fed him to the Distortion to save the world, and it ate him, body and soul, but kept coagulated lumps of his malleable mind to orient itself and carried his face lashed onto it like tying a thin cloth mask around a sack of squirming and struggling <em>something </em>and leaving it there.</p><p>Micheal walked into the yellow door with a map. He walked forwards and backwards and inwards and down upon down upon upon down upon upon down upon upon down upon down, and something else walked out.</p><p>Micheal Shelley was a good person. “Me, <em>Micheal</em>,” was not a person at all. “<em>Micheal</em>” hated speaking of itself. Of himself. What was left of Micheal Shelley couldn’t be digested, so <em>“Micheal”</em> wore the slowly-sloughing disguise of his form as the closest it could get to flinging him away.</p><p>“<em>Micheal”</em>’s hand doesn’t own his stomach, they work in pairs. Endless turning-curling-inwards pairs, full of bones and mirrors. Any real estate agent worth their salt knows to promise good bones. He caught things to wander. It found things to digest. When is a door a door, and when is it a diversion? Something tricking you into changing the shape of your attention?</p><p>Helen Richardson walked into the yellow door in a fit of nerves and something else walked out.</p><p>He is not Micheal. She is not Helen. He is an echo. She is a farce.</p><p>He was growing ever weaker inside the distorted, what remained of himself ate away by fear and pain, twisted by malice and bloodlust like a creeping fever on the edge of raving. She retained more of herself but not for long and now she is as cruel and vicious as the bones in the Spiral's hands are many. It pulled Micheal Shelley back into itself and shredded him sideways across dimensions because it’d grown counter to itself when it was him, and now that it’s her she can be itself again.</p><p> </p><p>What is a real name? Micheal Shelley is dead. Helen Richardson is dead.</p><p>It would be kinder if they’d been dead before they stepped inside the yellow door. The Spiral is not kind. The Spiral is sharp-cornered and unending. Distortion rises like static and shatters all the mirrors and the shards on the ground begin giggling. The yellow wallpaper in the endless hallways seeps dark water-stains. It grows vines that curve around each other like people who struggle to break free. There are no right turns.</p><p><br/>Trust nothing. Especially not what you were.</p>
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